Greaves Brewery Case Analysis
Greaves Brewery: Bottle Replenishment Case Analysis
Case Synopsis
The following is an analysis of the case, Greaves Brewery: Bottle Replenishment. It details the growing beer operation of Greaves Brewery located in the Caribbean island of Trinidad. The purchasing manager for the company, Alex Benson, is uncertain about how many bottles to order from the company’s German glass supplier. His decision is complicated by the possibility of a new bottle design being introduced that would compromise his existing inventory of bottles. Additionally, he is faced with storage limitations and erratic sales, all of which are impacting his decision. He is also concerned about over ordering to avoid issues from an
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Data Analysis to Support Decision
According to the case, prior to the implementation of the Trinidadian’s government excise taxes, Greaves Brewery was showing signs of growth (Erskine, Leenders & Piper, 2004). To show growth trends, a Time Series graph was run from 1999 to 2004. However, the purpose of the case is to determine the quantity of bottles that Greaves needs to purchase based on a sales forecast for 2004. Greaves provided five years and two months of annual sales data. Using Stat Tools, the following analysis were run: Moving Average, Exponential Smoothing Simple, Exponential Smoothing Holt’s, and Exponential Smoothing Winter’s. Following a comparison on the average on all models, the Exponential Smoothing Winter’s was found to be the most suitable model for the case. A graph analysis is captured below. StatTools Report | | | | |
Analysis: | Forecast | | | | |
Performed By: | shart | | | | |
Date: | Friday, November 18, 2011 | | | |
Updating: | Live/Unlinked | | | | |
Forecasting Constant | | | | | |
Span | 3 | | | | |
Moving Averages | | | | | |
Mean Abs Err | 62.10 | | | | |
Root Mean Sq Err | 83.52 | | | | |
Mean Abs Per% Err | 22.27% | | | | |
Forecasting Data | Sales | Forecast |
| The company has a few different suppliers but relies on each supplier to bring in the stock for them to sell, if they didn’t have more than one supplier then they wouldn’t have anything to sell if one stopped production or went on strike.
Using the assumptions given in the case, all elements of income statement and balance sheet can be projected for next three years 2010, 2011 and 2012. Sales cycle of the products of the company is such that sales of a particular product increases initially for few years and then starts to decline as the new technology
Brand plays a key role in the beer-purchasing process, along with taste, price, special occasion,
Boston Beer’s strategy is primarily focused on growth through differentiation. The sources of its competitive advantage can be classified as a company that provides high quality beer with unique flavors, a market driven approach, and a very efficient contract brewing strategy.
Boston Beer Company (BBC) has enjoyed much success with their craft beers with Samuel Adams as their main focus. Being the leader of this segment, overtopping five of their competitors combined (Exhibit 1), the company now must decide how to take advantage of the light beer market. Boston Lightship, their current light beer, had been a small contributor in BBC’s product line. Currently, it is facing dwindling sales with product volumes down from 12 000 cases per month to 3000 cases per month.
The Chinese department store’s order would require significant communication with the UK based research and development centre which would take time to develop new ideas for products and cost money as well. The factory is also running at high levels of capacity with capacity utilisation of 95% which is 30% more than the UK factory. Since the factory is running at a higher capacity utilisation level it means that the number of defective products has raised as well as the care for quality has decreased and volume has increased. Andrew is worried this might not give the good impression that is needed from the company as they are trying to sell high quality British products. The amounts of defective products in the Chinese
Seven models were created in order to obtain the model in which all-remaining variables are statistically significant and the final equation to predict sales is as follow:
Both systems have their advantages and disadvantages, the labor-based allocation method provides a fast straightforward method for businesses with labor intensive processes that in many businesses make up the majority of these costs. For this microbrewery however, especially within overheads the percentage of costs labor attributes towards is relatively minimal. Therefore reducing the effectiveness of such a method. ABC however represents a more in depth look at cost allocation and within such a business where there are a huge variety of factors involved looking at a more segmented form of activity based cost allocation is extremely important.
1. Johnson Beverage, Inc. (JBI) distributes sports drinks to retail customers and have been in business for two decades. Mr. Jack Johnson, the president and primary owner of JBI, has to decide whether or not to continue to pursue Saver Superstore as a customer by offering greater discounts. Saver Superstore is their largest customer and a great customer in terms of customer service costs because they never request quick delivery and always know exactly how much they need to order. JBI initially calculated that their profit margin on Saver Superstore is not significant enough to try to offer higher discounts to keep the customers.
a) The consumers’ tastes were changing. According to the case, the beer consumption had declined by 2.3% due to the competition from wine and spirits-based drinks. What’s more, an increase in federal tax as well as health concerns also caused the decline of the sales of beer.
The following is an analysis of the case, Greaves Brewery: Bottle Replenishment. It details the growing beer operation of Greaves Brewery located in the Caribbean island of Trinidad. The purchasing manager for the company, Alex Benson, is uncertain about how many bottles to order from the company’s German glass supplier. His decision is complicated by the possibility of a new bottle design being introduced that would compromise his existing inventory of bottles. Additionally, he is faced with storage limitations and erratic sales, all of which are impacting his decision. He is also concerned about over ordering to avoid issues from an off year, impact from
One of the Nation’s third-largest craft breweries, based out of Colorado, New Belgium Brewing Company, Inc. (the Company). The Company was founded in 1991, a privately held corporation. Its first operation started off in the basement of Jeff Lebesch (founder). The Company prides itself on its branding strategies “triple bottom line” and social responsibility which focuses on economic, social, and environmental factors. New Belgium’s marketing strategy links the Company’s viewpoint to the quality of its products. The Company continues to support the community, giving back & advocating positive change. However for continued success, New Belgium has to continually analysis its situation in the marketplace,
But as the company grows, they will have to let go of this structure and culture. Even Peter wonders if this structure is suitable if the company will grow in the future. SOLUTION: By growing as a corporation in the future, the company should and will hire more and more employees, and as the personnel increases in number, the organizational structure and the culture will change.
Bottom-up approach has been used to arrive at the sales data, as the hybrid and the Top-down approaches were not possible due to lack of information on economy and industry as a whole since there have been on going
In this case study the given data would fall in the category of a time series because the sales figures increased over the time (years). Also in reviewing the data there is seasonal variation in the sales figures from 2006 to 2008. This category of data can be analyzed using time series methodologies. The next year’s data or projected data is dependent on the previous year’s data, so time series analysis is appropriate.